Horror and Fantasy writer

The Blood Countess (A Talon Prequel) Excerpt

The Ottoman camp was a few miles outside the village of Csejte. The bastards had been running raids from this position for months. As I looked down the hill at them, I smiled. There were at least two to three hundred of them down there, and they were all about to made midnight snacks.

I pulled Molly close to me and kissed her. “Are you ready, my darling?”

Licking her lips, a twinkle appeared in her eyes. “Oh, I’ve been ready.”

Tessa walked up from behind and twisted a strand of Molly’s hair around her finger. “Now remember your part, Molly. But then again, why am I reminding you? You’ve learned to play the damsel in distress so well.”

Kissing Molly one last time, I sank my fangs into her tongue and took a little sip before sending her on her way. “Go get them, my love.”

Following around fifty feet behind Molly, Tessa and I watched as she started screaming. She ran right into the middle of the Ottoman camp and she definitely got their attention. They encircled her with fiendish looks on their faces.

One walked up and grabbed Molly by the hair. “Well, well, look what we have here! Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little play-toy for the night, boys!”

That’s it, take the bait, boys.

“No! Please, no! Someone help me!” Molly screamed. My God, she was turning into quite the little actress. I almost believed she was in distress myself.

The large brute that had her by the hair invited a few of his friends to follow him inside his tent and dragged Molly inside. She kept screaming for a few seconds, and then the world went silent. Suddenly, it was the men who were screaming, and then once again, silence.

Molly appeared out of the tent, covered in blood, and holding the head of the bastard who had dared put his hands on her. She was laughing quite loudly and then screamed, “Come on, boys! Who wants a turn?”

With that said, the massacre was on. I dropped my fangs and talons all at once and rushed the camp. One Ottoman must have seen me out of the corner of his eye, he raised his sword to take a swing at me, but I was past him and my talons had ripped out his throat before he had a chance to move. There were men running everywhere, I almost couldn’t decide where to start.

I saw men flying through the air as I tackled the two largest men I saw to the ground. With one, I stabbed my talons into his eye sockets. With the other, I picked him up by the throat and crushed his larynx as I held him up off the ground. Catching Molly out of the corner of my eye, I yelled, “Molly, catch!” and tossed the half-dead Ottoman to her. She sank her fangs into his neck and pinned him to the ground in a matter of seconds.

Mmm, that’s my girl!

To my left, I saw a dozen men surrounding Tessa. She stood there with her arms at her side. She didn’t even act concerned at them leering at her with their weapons in hand. After I knocked a foot soldier to the ground and drank him dry, I took a seat and watched my Sire work.

The first to approach her had a spear. His feeble attempt to stab her missed badly. She stepped to the side, took his spear from him, and kicked his legs out from under him. She impaled the man to the ground as his blood sprayed all over her. She then pulled the spear free, let out a war-cry that gave even me chills, and snapped the spear over her knee. Well, that was more than enough for the other eleven men to scatter to the wind, but I wasn’t letting them get away. Not tonight. We hadn’t had a full-blown feeding frenzy in months and I was personally going to get blood-drunk.

I leaped into the air and drove my knees into one man’s chest, sending him to the ground. Seeing Molly pounce on him, I moved on to the next. He was a young man, not much older than I was when I was turned. He lunged at me with a sword and I laughed as he nearly fell when I moved. He turned and faced me again with a determined look on his face. “Come now,” I said, “do all Ottoman’s fight like women? Or is it just you?”

Well, that certainly fired him up. He began performing some masterful sword-play but he was simply too slow to possibly hit me. To mock him, I even put my hands behind my back. He slashed for my head and I ducked at the last minute. Mockingly, I said, “Almost. You’re getting closer.”

He kept hacking and slashing blindly in my direction and I continued laughing at him. The more I laughed, the wilder his swings became. Soon I was doing my best impression of an Irish jig as the boy kept overextending himself, nearly falling to the ground with each swing.

I heard Tessa scream, “Talon! Stop playing with the poor thing and put him down!”

Aw, but I was just starting to have fun.

I grabbed the boy by his throat and slammed him down to the ground. The impact caused him to drop his sword, not that it was doing him any good, and I got nose to nose with the boy. “Wh—what are you?” he asked me.

Smiling at him with my fangs, I scoffed, “I am the Devil and you are playing in my domain!” I promptly dug my fangs into his neck and drank until his screams faded to nothing.

I stood up and shouted at the top of my lungs, “You call yourselves an army? Come and get me you spineless fucks!”

As chaos erupted all around me, I stood and watched. Half the Ottoman camp was now on fire and the bodies were beginning to pile up everywhere. Anyone who came too close I would grab, throw to the ground, and drain dry. It had been so long, I was truly blood-drunk. I stumbled about, laughing as Molly and Tessa ripped to shreds the men who had dared stand in our way. I watched as the Ottoman camp burned to the ground. We left not a single survivor. This night, we were gods, and the gods were angry.